


Cold

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as a gift for myashake at the Glomp fic fest. My prompt was <i> Arthur keeping Merlin warm in their tent/bed/room at an inn.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

The ground is frosty and hard. A crust like a transparent patina has formed itself over the lumpy camp-site mud. It's more than a half inch deep in places and hard to break. Not even the wheels of their supply wagons have cut furrows into it, but for the faintest tracks that soon disappear.

Crystallised flakes coat pine needles and tree bark like a crown of glass.

Arthur can see the faint plumes of his breath snake out each time he breathes out.

The horses' heavy breathing can be heard in the distance, the animals' neighing a clear complaint against the harsh conditions.

In the light of the half moon, the tents look like blocks of grey, their Pendragon red faded to a dull muted colour. Despite this, dead grass and frozen flowers glitter in the demi-light.

For the most part the fires of their bivouacs have died down and the knights and men at arms are hardly talking anymore. But for the sentries, most of them have fallen asleep, huddling in twos and trees, human lumps massed together looking for warmth.

Among the bodies orbiting closer, Arthur can't identify Merlin's. However hard he looks, however much he squints, Arthur can't spot him anywhere. The idiot, he'll freeze to death before the night is out.

His men have had the good sense to seek each other out to fight the cold, but Merlin, twiggy, spare Merlin, isn't to be seen among their numbers. He's not lying next to Elyan and has not snuggled closer to Gwaine, who's his dear friend. He's not even wrapped under a blanket anywhere near the camp-fires.

“Have you seen Merlin?” he asks a sentry.

The sentry jumps up in place, straightens and says, “No, sire.”

Arthur quickens his pace and makes for the royal tent. The light cast by the single torch flutters as the wind blows, but it's enough to see by. Arthur's camp-bed hasn't been touched, furs spread over it the same way they were when he left at the crack of dawn.

Yet the embers in the brazier glow and shed light on a small bed-roll placed a few paces before but some distance away from Arthur's bedding, right in the middle of the tent.

A single, paltry dull grey blanket covers a reclining body, a tuft of dark spiked-up hair clearly sticking out.

Arthur's shoulders relax and he fetches a sigh.

He lets the tent flap fall back into place and marches in. He sheds his gloves and drops them on his pallet. His cloak follows as do pauldron and chainmail. Freed from the weight of his layers, Arthur stretches but feels the biting cold even more keenly. It makes his fingers feel fat and clumsy and bites at his cheeks and neck.

Rubbing his hands together, he takes covers and furs from his bedding and lays them down behind Merlin's sleeping form.

He creates a decent nest and settles down, plastering himself to Merlin's back, becoming his living blanket.

He settles the furs over them both and props himself up on his elbow to make sure they cover Merlin properly.

When he's certain that nothing but Merlin's nose sticking out, he kisses the top of Merlin's head – once and then again, closing his eyes as he does – and lays himself down, wrapping an arm around him. 

Merlin mumbles in his sleep, and when Arthur finds his hands, it's to establish they're like blocks of ice. He wraps the both of his around Merlin's even though he isn't quite sure he can feel his own yet. He does his best to rub warmth into Merlin's however. After a while it seems that they get as warm as they ever will in this cursed weather, so he lays off and presses his nose into Merlin's neck, breathing him in deeply, the familiar home-like smell of him, and dares graze his parted, chapped lips along Merlin's nape, luxuriating in the opportunity to do so.

It's lucky Merlin sleeps like the dead when he feels he's safe; otherwise Arthur wouldn't know what would happen. He clamps down on Merlin and pulls tight, so that he slides even closer, the back of Merlin's legs bumping against the front of Arthur's.

He must have exercised too much pressure, the weight of his arms becoming conspicuous, for Merlin mutters and stutters and half wakes, unintelligible words falling from his lips.

“Did you think you were guarding me?” Arthur asks.

Merlin conjures a surprised, “I-- Uh.”

“The placing of your bedroll was quite a dead give away.”

“If they kill the king...”

Arthur clamps down on Merlin, his arm what must have been a vice around him. “I don't need saving. I don't need you to freeze to death in order to play bodyguard. You should have huddled for warmth with the other knights.”

“I serve you.”

“Merlin, that's too...”

Merlin's hand finds his, covers it. “Don't tell me it's too much. Or that I'm a dollop-head for doing it. I'll never do any different.”

Arthur grunts. “My, but you're stubborn.”

Merlin perks up a bit, looking more awake. “All these years and only now you notice?”

Arthur knows Merlin is trying to make little of his pig-headed self-sacrificial streak, of his dogged fidelity. For a moment Arthur's tempted to argue, make Merlin see reason, but for however long they've known each other he's never managed and he doubts he will succeed tonight, when he's tired, bones aching and heavy, and half stupid both with cold and drowsiness.

“And now you're as cold as a slab of ice. It's not that pleasant.”

“You have that nice camp bed of yours. You don't need to share in my cold feet.” This is when Merlin notices the furs he's tucked under. His lips curl a little in a soft yet sleepy smile.

“That I do.”

Merlin wiggles his toes, which makes Arthur chuckle deeply in his chest, a warmth flaring down his torso and belly just as it does when he's drunk spirits on Yule Eve. “Then you should go back to your royal camp bed. Is this ermine?”

Arthur tangles their feet together. “And find a dead royal manservant in the morning? Nah.”

They both fall quiet, a tremble shakes Merlin but Arthur doesn't think it's the cold anymore.

He murmurs a good night that is all lips pressed against the bend of Merlin's neck. Merlin's breathing pattern evens out and soon after Arthur follows him into sleep and dreams.

 

The End


End file.
